


Mirrored

by aykayem



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-05
Updated: 2012-03-05
Packaged: 2017-11-01 04:06:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/351764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aykayem/pseuds/aykayem
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pansy reflects upon her relationship with Draco, and how they'd both changed. Alternatively titled 'Somebody that I used to know'.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mirrored

Pansy always liked to think that she knew Draco a little bit better than everyone else. She knew him longer than anyone else; she'd dated him for a good two years, and they'd known each other far longer than even that. She had seen a side of him that no one else had, not even Blaise or Crabbe or Goyle or anyone else who thought they knew him best. She had seen that soft side of him that could genuinely smile; the determined ambition that drove him to be someone that people could look up to, and would; the pain that he sometimes felt when it looked like nothing was going right.

She remembered sharing a bath with him in fifth year, the pair of them just new Prefects: they had been so young, so naive, so inexperienced in everything the world could throw at them, but so oddly happy. She remembered being unable to keep from smiling for months on end when she was with him. They'd made sure to go late enough to avoid anyone else - with only a handful of Prefects around, it was easy to sort out an unspoken schedule. She could still feel the heat of the water around them, and the blush on her cheeks as he took it upon himself to fill his hands with sweet-smelling shampoo and card them through her hair, lathering it into bubbles. She remembered that wide smile that inadvertently curved his mouth as he worked the suds into different things - hats, crowns, nothing she could see; she remembered the sound of his laugh when it became particularly ridiculous.

It was her fault he now had faint laugh lines around his mouth and small crinkles in the corners of his eyes. In all the times since school they'd seen each other from their peripherals, neither of them had acknowledged the other; they'd moved on in life, had found different directions for themselves. She couldn't blame him for that.

Even she had moved on, difficult as it had been. He still held a place in her heart, a little spot that wouldn't be so easily filled without him there though it had to be. She could still recall vividly the look on his face as he avoided her gaze in sixth year, trying to explain in as few words as possible that it wasn't working. She knew it had been, knew that he was just trying to shove everyone away, but said nothing. It hit her harder than she had expected, though she had seen it coming from his words on the train. From the way he had been acting since the summer, from the way that he had dropped Quidditch and had begun ignoring his studies. But still, she couldn't forget the look of pain on his face, and the way it affected her more than anything else: he looked as though even his heart was breaking, though he had never once said he loved her, or even treated her like he did. She had always just been a hanger-on to him until that moment, until that mostly steeled expression that told her more than he meant it to show.

He did love her in his own way, in a way that she couldn't hope to understand. In a way that he probably couldn't even figure out until long after they were done, if he had figured it out at all. She still wasn't sure he had, and she wasn't holding her breath.

She remembered the way that he looked at her after the Battle of Hogwarts, catching her eye across the Great Hall. He had been with his parents, she had been alone, having alienated herself from their classmates for unpopular opinions. She hadn't known what to make of the curious stare he gave her - still didn't, really - and had simply turned away.

She hadn't said anything to him since, hadn't known what to say if she had the chance, hadn't wanted to act on any of the things she had wanted to for so long. The pair of them were perfectly matched, in a way: both were textbook examples of being unsure in every way, unable to deal with things that most people assumed easy. Maybe that was why she loved him so. Maybe it was just because he always made her feel special when she knew she wasn't.

Maybe one day, they would be able to return to the way they were; maybe they'd fall back into synced steps like they had back in the day. She wasn't holding her breath - not really, at least - but there was always that little shred of hope.


End file.
